Wildflowers to brighten up your space
WANT to get some wildflowers into your garden but not sure how? Don’t have a garden but have room for a pot or two or maybe a window box? Then let Shaun Waycott from Grow Wilder’s wildflower nursery give you some ideas.
LARGE pots, planters, or all manner of re-purposed containers are great way of planting wildflowers in smaller spaces.
If it will hold compost and has drainage holes in the bottom (or you can make some) you can probably plant it with wildflowers.
Fill the container with potting compost or a 70/30 mixture of compost and soil.
Decide whether the area where you want to put the container is in full sun or in partial shade, then plant up with plants that suit. Some suggestions for a sunny spot are white oxeye daisys, mauve common knapweed, purple selfheal, common toadflax or yellow bird’s foot trefoil for the edges and lilac field scabious. For a spot in partial shade try red campion, selfheal, foxglove, wild strawberry or white hedge bedstraw.
Don’t forget that your containers will require watering regularly in dry weather, especially on hot days. A large pot can even be used to make a mini bog garden. Fill it with compost, add plants such as the beautiful yellow marsh marigold, tall, purple loosestrife and water mint.
Stand the pot in a deep saucer or tray and keep the tray topped up with water to keep the plants permanently moist.
If you have a bit of space in a border or raised bed, perennial wildflowers can be grown like any other herbaceous perennial.
Space them out; we recommend six to 12 plants per square metre. You can even deadhead them like other garden flowers for a longer season of flowers. Or leave them to go to seed as many of our garden birds feed on the seeds of wildflowers.
Wildflowers can be fitted into all parts of the garden. If you still want some other garden flowers there is a recommendation to use 60 per cent native wildflowers and 40 per cent other garden flowers which can extend the nectar season. Or go completely wild and fill your garden with wildflowers!
As it’s No Mow May, let’s talk about wildflowers in the lawn.
Plant a good mix of plants for a sunny spot in your lawn or part of it and let it grow long, cutting once a year in September. The long grasses are great for grasshoppers, crickets and butterflies.
Or plant low-growing plants such as catsear, selfheal, bird’s foot trefoil, yarrow in the lawn and reduce mowing to once every five weeks to allow flowering in between mows.
So why are we doing all this? Because wildflowers are beautiful in their own right.
Flowers and greenery enhance our living and working spaces and are proven to benefit wellbeing, and of course provide food and a home for all the bees, butterflies, beetles, hoverflies that will seek
out your wildflowers.
It’s your chance to help make a difference in your neighbourhood.
All the wildflowers I’ve mentioned are available at the Grow Wilder nursery, you can either pay us a visit in person or order your wildflower seeds online at www. growwilder.co.uk
If you’re letting your garden grow wild, let us know! You can log your action at avonwildlifetrust. org.uk/30-30-action, tag us in photos on social media @avonwt or email us at communications@ avonwildlifetrust.org.uk